Beast Helps Lift Burdens ‘Kissy, Kissy’ Llama Big Hit At Va Hospital

Things are getting wild and woolly at the veterans hospital.

After using fish, finches and dogs to cheer up its elderly patients, the Department of Veterans Affairs Medical Center has turned to Elvira, a smooching llama who travels in the back seat of her owner’s Plymouth.

“It’s not your run-of-the-mill pet therapy,” says Betty Carr-Richards, associate chief of nursing at the 215-bed hospital.

Animal therapy has been used for years to relieve loneliness and isolation in nursing homes, with studies showing that older people cheer up after playing with animals.

“It’s the idea of experiencing warmth, love and contact that makes a difference in people’s lives,” says Dr. David Lipschitz, who directs the Geriatric Research, Education and Clinical Center at a VA hospital in Little Rock. “That’s frequently taken away from older people.”

Animals and patients have mingled at the VA hospital in North Little Rock for three years, but until Elvira arrived it used Charlie the black Labrador mix, a tank full of fish, and finches Oscar and Ophelia.

“A friend was visiting me and he saw the llama arrive. He said, ‘You won’t believe what I just saw. It’s not a horse, not a camel, and it’s too big to be a dog,”’ recalls Jimmy Johnson, 63, a retired teacher.

The 10-month-old llama, which weighs 110 pounds and stands about 3 feet high, came right to his bedside.

“I got to pet her and she nibbled on my gown - but she didn’t pucker up,” he says.

Elvira’s owner, Bobby Enwright, drives her 140 miles - and three hours - from his Ozark Mountain farm near the Missouri line. He needs no radio.

“She hums at me and sings,” Enwright says. “She lays down in the car and doesn’t move around.”

Carr-Richards “interviewed” Elvira before letting her visit.

“We don’t just let any animal come up here. I heard that llamas getting mad or cantankerous can spit on people,” she says. “But she’s a very clean, gentle animal.”

Elvira “likes to kissy, kissy,” Carr-Richards says. “She’ll kiss patients’ arms or whatever they put up there.”

Elvira has also visited the Pioneer Nursing and Rehab Center in Melbourne. Clara Tate, an 82-year-old retired farmer, says she had handled chickens, cattle and hogs, but never a llama.

“I was surprised it wasn’t wild at all,” Tate says. “It wanted to love on everybody.”

Carr-Richards says her hospital has not conducted studies on the effectiveness of pet therapy, but she knows it serves her patients well.

“It’s just one of those things where you know patients have not responded to other types of stimuli and you bring a pet to their bedside and they try to pet it,” she says. “You know there’s something there.”